During this critical time of a world wide shortage of hops (partly due to the fact that farmers are growing corn for ethanol production instead of hops), it is nice to see such a wonderful gesture by the nations largest craft brewer Boston Beer Co. AKA Sam Adams.

Via SunJournal.com:

A shortage of a key ingredient in beer has shown that even business competitors can come together over a cold one now and then.

That happened last week when the nation’s largest craft brewery, Boston Beer Co., the maker of the Samuel Adams brand, agreed to share 20,000 pounds of its hops with craft brewers throughout the country, including two in Iowa.

A worldwide shortage of hops has left smaller brewers unable to buy the important perennial flower that adds some of the bitterness and aroma to beer.

About six weeks ago Boston Beer sent out letters to small brewers that it wanted to help them by making available some of its hops at cost. The company said it received 352 requests totaling about 100,000 pounds.

“It shows how great the need is and I felt really bad,” said Boston Beer Co. founder Jim Koch. “We even fudged it a little and went over the 20,000 pounds, but we just don’t have the capability of filling this hole ourselves, but we were able to fill 20 percent of it.”

This entry was posted
on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Beer News.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.